


The wish I wish tonight

by imminentinertia



Series: December 2018 [1]
Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas Decorations, Future Fic, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:15:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imminentinertia/pseuds/imminentinertia
Summary: A visit to Marianne, and a present, of sorts





	The wish I wish tonight

**Author's Note:**

> SKAMenger Hunt prompt filled: stars/stargazing¨
> 
> Unbetaed, but I was so happy about writing something after quite some time of not wanting to write that I just posted.

 

Marianne’s house doesn’t feel like home anymore.

Isak is a guest there now, and while he enjoys visiting his mum, she could have lived anywhere and it wouldn’t matter. The memories he has from that house seem like old notes, the ink faded and the paper crumpled. Here is the staircase he tried to slide down using a tray as a sled, there in the garden is the maple tree he used to climb, there is the kitchen table he used to do his homework at because it was nicer being in the kitchen with mum or dad than sitting at his desk in his room. None of these things mean anything to him anymore, they’re just items in the place where his mum lives.

Whenever he peeks into his old room, he feels almost like he’s intruding. A stranger has put those posters on the walls and that periodic table rubber mat on the desk, a stranger filled that bookshelf with children’s book club books and flea market finds about science. A stranger slept in that bed. A stranger lay awake in that bed, thoughts churning and churning half the night. 

He rarely has reason to open that door.

He rarely has reason to come to this house at all, but now and then he goes to see Marianne. Even comes along sometimes, and does that thing where he charms Marianne to the point where she’ll probably disown Isak and adopt Even if they break up.

Even is along this time, for a laidback everyday dinner and some early December gløgg. It’s a nice evening with his mum and his boyfriend, and Isak is content. Marianne made a really good soup, from scratch, no freeze dried ready made stuff in sight, and she’s been stable for months and chatting with them like nothing has never been wrong. 

Isak really couldn’t ask for more right now, as he’s stacking their dishes in the dishwasher while Even insists that he’s helping by sitting at the kitchen table and entertaining Isak. Marianne went upstairs to get something, Isak thinks.

He’s a guest, but a guest who knows his way around the hostess’ kitchen and will volunteer to do dishes, a guest Marianne doesn’t have to put on her best face for, he’s her son visiting her in a home that isn’t his.

It’s all good.

“Remember this, Isak?”

Marianne enters the kitchen holding something up, and in an instant Isak is eight years old again, proudly gifting his mum with what he made in school for Christmas.

It’s a string of paper stars to hang on the Christmas tree. All the kids in his class made them, but Isak secretly thought his turned out better than most, and certainly better than his drawings and knits from the same era.

There was a ball of glittery white yarn in the big box of leftover yarn the teacher brought for the project, and Isak got hold of enough of it to have one strand of it plaited together with plain white yarn. His classmate Selma snagged enough to have all glittery yarn in her plait, but Isak thought that was too much. It looked much better like he did it.

Then he’d made the stars, from thick white craft paper that he took great care to fold properly and not accidentally crumple. He’d made a neat hole in each with a fat darning needle and tied them to the plaited wool, evenly spaced. Then he painted them with little swirls of gold paint, a little annoyed and worried because they were difficult to hold perfectly still, but he managed to not make any blobs with the brush.

The classroom had been a sight, with strings of painted paper stars hanging everywhere while the paint dried.

And Marianne had looked so delighted when she saw it, taking it very carefully and storing it on its own in a shoebox until it was time to decorate the tree.

It kept very well in that shoebox in the years after, and every year it the Christmas tree was festooned with it. The gold paint would glitter and shine in the lights on the tree as they slowly turned one way, then another.

Until the year Isak was fourteen.

That year there was no tree.

With an effort, Isak pulls himself back to present time.

Both Marianne and Even are looking at him, a little warily. He suspects his eyes glazed over for a moment there. Or several moments.

He focuses on the string of stars again. It has actually kept very well, the paint is intact and only a couple of the stars have some bent points.

“Yeah,” he manages to say.

He touches one of the stars, lightly, with just a finger.

“It still looks fine.”

Marianne practically beams.

“There’s nothing else in the star box! Nothing can crush it there between Christmases.”

Isak almost feels faint. All through those shit years, all through the time she threw out lots of stuff from the attic, all through the time she got rid of his dad’s stuff from closets and wardrobes, all through the Christmases with no decorations, the string of stars sat quietly in its shoebox somewhere and was kept. Not thrown away.

He’s pulled back when Marianne speaks again.

“So, you two are having a Christmas tree again this year, aren’t you?”

Even laughs, his low warm lovely laughter.

“Yeah, the smallest one we can find, again. It takes some manoeuvring, but it’s worth it.”

Isak can only nod, to show he’s with them.

“I was thinking you might like to have this, for your tiny tree?”

Marianne smiles and holds the string of stars out to Isak. When he just stands there, her face falls a little, her hands sinking just a bit.

“Um, of course it’s not nice to return a gift, but… I’d like you to have something of Christmas when you were little, now that you… Goodness, you’re all grown up, Isak.”

He can’t help that his sight blurs a little at the edges.

“Of course. I want it. I‘d love to have it. If you’re… I mean, it was for you but it’s kind of like it’s  _ from _ you as well. Now.”

He doesn’t make any sense, he thinks, but Marianne beams again. Even keeps quiet, but he smiles at Isak when Isak glances at him.

“I’ll go get the box.”

Marianne gently puts the string of stars in Isak’s hands and hurries out of the kitchen.

Isak stands still, gazing at his handfuls of paper stars, of Christmases past.

Until he feels Even’s arm around his shoulders, the light, warm pressure of the  _now_ and the future.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [skamskada](https://skamskada.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr. Come say hi!


End file.
